pećina predaka (eng)

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Broj postova : 62Age : 43Registration date : 09.10.2012

Naslov: pećina predaka (eng) uto oľu 05, 2013 9:50 pm

nisam mogao naći na našem jeziku pa cu zaljepiti na engleskom...uglavnom , davno sam čitao knjigu pećina predaka od T. Lobsanga Rampe i sad nakon toliko godina vidim poveznice koje je on objašnjavao u svojim knjigama. knjige je pisao 50-ih, 60-ih i 70-ih godina prošlog stoljeća. neki kažu da je fake. meni osobno on iznosi toliko detalja u svojim knjigama da jednostavno nije mogao sve to izmisliti. evo jedan dio iz knjige pećina predaka: ....“I was a very young lama, Lobsang,” commenced my Guide. “With my Teacher and three young lamas we were exploring some of the remoter mountain ranges. Some weeks before there had been an extraordinary loud bang, followed by a heavy rock-fall. We were out to investigate matters. For days we had prowled round the base of a mighty rock pinnacle. Early on the morning of the fifth day my Teacher awakened, yet was not awake; he appeared to be in a daze. We spoke to him and received no answer. I was overcome by worry, thinking that he was ill, wondering how we should get him down the endless miles to safety. Sluggishly, as if in the grip of some strange power, he struggled to his feet, fell over, and at last stood upright. Stumbling, jerking, and moving like a man in a trance, he moved ahead. We followed almost in fear and trembling. Up the steep rock face we climbed, with showers of small stones raining down upon us. At last we reached the sharp edge of the range top and stood peering over. I experienced a feeling of deep disappointment; before us was a small valley now almost filled with huge boulders. Here evidently was where the rock fall had originated. Some rock-fault had developed, or some Earth tremor had occurred which had dislodged part of the mountainside. Great gashes of newly exposed rock glared at us in the bright sunlight. Moss and lichen drooped disconsolately now deprived of any support. I turned away in disgust. There was nothing here to engage my attention, nothing but a rather large rock-fall. I turned to start the descent, but was immediately halted by a whispered ‘Mingyar!’ One of my companions was pointing. My Teacher, still under some strange compulsion was edging down the mountainside.” I sat enthralled, my Guide stopped talking for a moment and took a sip of water, then continued. “We watched him with some desperation. Slowly he climbed down the side, toward the rock-strewn floor of the little valley. We reluctantly followed, expecting every moment to slip on that dangerous range. At the bottom, 80 my Teacher did not hesitate, but picked a careful way across the immense boulders, until at last he reached the other side of the stone valley. To our horror he commenced to climb upwards, using hand and foot holds which were invisible to us a few yards behind him. We followed reluctantly. There was no other course open to us, we could not return and say that our senior had climbed from us, that we were afraid to follow him—dangerous though the climb was. I climbed first, picking a very careful way. It was hard rock, the air was thin. Soon the breath was rasping in my throat and my lungs were filled with a harsh, dry ache. Upon a narrow ledge perhaps five hundred feet from the valley, I lay stretched out, gasping for breath. As I glanced up, preparatory to resuming the climb, I saw the yellow robe of my Teacher disappear over a ledge high above. Grimly I clung to the mountain face, edging ever upwards. My companions, as reluctant as I, followed behind. By now we were clear of the shelter afforded by the small valley, and the keen wind was whipping our robes about us. Small stones pelted down and we were hard put to keep going.” My Guide paused a moment to take another sip of water and to look to see that I was Listening. I was! “At last,” he continued, “I felt a ledge level with my questing fingers. Taking a firm grip, and calling to the others that we had reached a place where we could rest, I pulled myself up. There was a ledge, sloping slightly down towards the back and so quite invisible from the other side of the mountain range. At first glance the ledge appeared to be about ten feet wide. I did not stop to see further, but knelt so that I could help the others up, one by one. Soon we stood together, shivering in the wind after our exertion. Quite obviously the rock fall had uncovered this ledge, and —as I peered more closely, there was a narrow crevice in the mountain wall. Was there? From where we stood it might have been a shadow, or the stain of dark lichen. As one, we moved forward. It was a crevice, one that was about two feet six inches wide by about five feet high. Of 81 my Teacher there was no sign.” I could visualize the scene well. But this was not the time for introspection. I did not want to miss a word! “I stepped back to see if my Teacher had climbed higher,” my Guide went on, “but there was no sign of him. Fearfully I peered into the crevice. It was as dark as the grave. Inch by inch, painfully bent, I moved inside. About fifteen feet in I turned a very sharp corner, another, and then another. Had I not been paralyzed with fright I would have screamed with surprise; here was light, a soft silvery light, brighter than the brightest moonlight. Light that I had never seen before. The cave in which I now found myself was spacious, with a roof invisible in the darkness above. One of my companions pushed me out of the way and was in turn pushed by another. Soon the four of us stood silent and frightened gazing at the fantastic sight before us. A sight which would have made any one of us alone think that he had taken leave of his senses. The cave was more like an immense hall, it stretched away in the distance as if the mountain itself was hollow. The light was everywhere, beating down upon us from a number of globes which appeared to be suspended from the darkness of the roof. Strange machines crammed the place machines such as we could not have imagined. Even from the high roof depended apparatus and mechanisms. Some, I saw with great amazment, were covered by what appeared to be the clearest of glass.” My eyes must have been round with amazement, for the Lama smiled at me before resuming his story. “By now we had quite forgotten my Teacher, when he suddenly appeared we jumped straight off the ground in fright! He chuckled at our staring eyes and stricken faces. Now, we saw, he was no longer in the grip of that strange, overpowering compulsion. Together we wandered round looking at the strange machines. To us they had no meaning, they were just collections of metal and fabric in strange, exotic form. My Teacher moved toward a rather large black panel apparently built into one of the walls of the cave. 82 As he was about to feel its surface it swung open. By now we were almost at the point of believing that the whole place was bewitched, or that we had fallen prey to some hallucinating force. My Teacher jumped back in some alarm. The black panel swung shut. Greatly daring one of my companions stretched out his hand and the panel swung open again. A force which we could not resist propelled us forward. Uselessly fighting against every step, we were— somehow—made to enter through the panel doorway. Inside it was dark, as dark as the darkness of a hermit's cell. Still under the irresistible compulsion, we moved in many feet and then sat on the floor. For minutes we sat shivering with fright. As nothing happened we regained some calmness, and then we heard a series of clicks, as if metal were tapping and scraping on metal.” Involuntarily I shivered. I had the thought that I probably would have died of fright! My Guide continued. “Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a misty glow formed in the darkness before us. At first it was just a suspicion of blue-pink light, almost as if a ghost were materializing before our gaze. The mist-light spread, becoming brighter so that we could see the outlines of incredible machines filling this large hall, all except the centre of the floor upon which we sat. The light drew in upon itself, swirling, fading, and becoming brighter and then it formed and remained in spherical shape. I had the strange and unexplainable impression of age-old machinery creaking slowly into motion after eons of time. The five of us huddled together on the floor, literally spellbound. There came a probing inside my brain, as if demented telepathic lamas were playing, then the impression changed and became as clear as speech.” My Guide cleared his throat, and reached again for a drink, staying his hand in mid-air. “Let us have tea, Lobsang,” he said as he rang his silver bell. The monkattendant obviously knew what was wanted, for he came in with tea—and cakes! “Within the sphere of light we saw pictures,” said the 83 Lama Mingyar Dondup, “hazy at first, they soon cleared and ceased to be pictures. Instead we actually saw the events.” I could contain myself no longer: “But Honourable Lama, what did you see?” I asked in a fever of impatience. The Lama reached forward and poured himself more tea. It occurred to me then that I had never seen him eat those Indian sweet cakes. Tea, yes, he drank plenty of tea, but I had never known him take anything but the most sparing and the plainest of food. The gongs went for temple service, but the Lama did not stir. When the last of the monks had hurried by he sighed deeply, and said, “Now I will continue.” He resumed, “This is what we saw and heard, and you shall see and hear in the not too distant future. Thousands and thousands of years ago there was a high civilization upon this world. Men could fly through the air in machines which defied gravity; men were able to make machines which would impress thoughts upon the minds of others— thoughts which would appear as pictures. They had nuclear fission, and at last they detonated a bomb which all but wrecked the world, causing continents to sink below the oceans and others to rise. The world was decimated, and so, throughout the religions of this Earth we now have the story of the Flood.” I was unimpressed by this latter part. “Sir!” I exclaimed, “we can see pictures like that in the Akashic Record. Why struggle up dangerous mountains just to see what we can more easily experience here?” “Lobsang,” said my Guide gravely, “we can see all in the astral and in the Akashic Record, for the latter contains the knowledge of all that has happened. We can see but we cannot touch. In astral travel we can go places and return, but we cannot touch anything of the world. We cannot,” he smiled slightly, “take even a spare robe nor bring back a flower. So with the Akashic Record, we can see all, but we cannot examine in close detail those strange machines stored in those mountain halls. We are going to the mountains, and we are going to examine the machines.” 84 “How strange,” I said, “that these machines should of all the world be only in our country!” “Oh! But you are wrong!” explained my Guide. “There is a similar chamber at a certain place in the country of Egypt. There is another chamber with identical machines located in a place called South America. I have seen them, I know where they are. These secret chambers were concealed by the peoples of old so that their artifacts would be found by a later generation when the time was ready. This sudden rock fall accidentally bared the entrance to the chamber in Tibet, and once inside we gained the knowledge of the other chambers. But the day is far advanced. Soon seven of us - and that includes you—will set out and journey once again to the Cave of the Ancients.” For days I was in a fever of excitement. I had to keep my knowledge to myself. Others were to know that we were going to the mountains on a herb-gathering expedition. Even in such a secluded place as Lhasa there were always those on the constant lookout for financial gain; the representatives of other countries such as China, Russia, and England, some missionaries, and the traders who came from India, they were all ready to listen to where we kept our gold and our jewels, always ready to exploit anything that promised a profit for them. So—we kept the true nature of our expedition very secret indeed. Some two weeks after that talk with the Lama Mingyar Dondup, we were ready to depart, ready for the long, long climb up the mountains, through little known ravines and craggy paths. The Communists are now in Tibet, so the location of the Cave of the Ancients is deliberately being concealed, for the Cave is a very real place indeed, and possession of the artifacts there would permit the Communists to conquer the world. All this, all that I write is true, except the exact way to that Cave. In a secret place the precise area, complete with references and sketches, has been noted on paper so that — when the time comes — forces of freedom can find the place. 85 Slowly we descended the path from Chakpori Lamasery and made our way along to the Kashya Linga, passing that Park as we followed the road down to the ferry where the boatman was waiting for us with his inflated yak-hide boat drawn to the side. There were seven of us, including me, and the crossing of the River—the Kyi Chu—took some time. Eventually we were together again on the far bank. Shouldering our loads, food, rope, a spare robe each, and a few metal tools, we set out towards the south-west. We walked until the setting sun and lengthening shadows made it difficult for us to pick our way across the stony path. Then, in the gathering darkness, we had a modest meal of tsampa before settling down to sleep in the lee side of great boulders. I fell asleep almost as soon as my head rested upon my spare robe. Many Tibetan monks of lama grade slept sitting up, as the regulations prescribe. I, and many more slept lying down, but we had to follow the rule that we could sleep only if lying on the right side. My last sight before dropping off to sleep, was that of the Lama Mingyar Dondup sitting like a carved statue against the dark night sky. At the first light of the dawning day we awakened and had a very frugal meal, then taking up our loads, we marched on. For the whole day we walked, and for the day after. Passing the foothills, we came to the really mountainous ranges. Soon we were reduced to roping ourselves together and sending the lightest man—me!—across dangerous crevices first so that the ropes could be secured to rock pinnacles and thus afford safe passage to the heavier men. So we forged on, climbing up into the mountains. At last, as we stood at the foot of a mighty rock-face almost devoid of hand and foot holds, my Guide said, “Over this slab, down the other side, across the little valley which we shall find, and we are then at the foot of the Cave.” We prowled round the base of the slab looking for a hand hold. Apparently other rock falls throughout the years had obliterated small ledges and clefts. After wasting almost a 86 day we found a “chimney” of rock up which we climbed using hands and feet and wedging our backs against the other side of the “chimney”. Gasping and puffing in the rarefied air, we climbed to the top and looked over. At last before us was the valley. Staring intently at the far wall we could discern no cave, no fissure in the smooth rock surface. The valley below us was littered with great boulders and— far worse—a rushing mountain stream poured along the centre. Gingerly we climbed down to the valley and made our way to the banks of that fast-running stream until we came to a part where great boulders afforded a precarious passage for those with the ability to leap from rock to rock. I, being the smallest, had not the length of leg for the jumps, and so was ignominiously hauled through the icy torrent at the end of a rope. Another unfortunate, a small somewhat rotund lama, jumped short—and he too was hauled out at the end of a rope. On the far bank we wrung out our soaked robes and put them on again. Spray made all of us wet to the skin. Picking our way cautiously over the boulders, we crossed the valley and approached the final barrier, the rock slab. My Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, pointed to a fresh rock scar. “Look!” he said, “a further rock fall has knocked off the first ledge by which we climbed.” We stood well back, trying to get a view of the ascent before us. The first ledge was about twelve feet above the ground, and there was no other way. The tallest and sturdiest lama stood with his arms outstretched, bracing himself against the rock face, then the lightest of the lamas climbed on to his shoulders and similarly braced himself. At last I was lifted up so that I could climb on to the shoulders of the top man. With a rope around my waist, I eased myself on to the ledge. Below me the monks called directions, while slowly, almost dying with fright, I climbed higher until I could loop the end of the rope around a projecting pinnacle of rock. I crouched to the side of the ledge as one after the other, 87 the six lamas climbed the rope, passed me, and continued, upwards. The last one untied the rope, coiled it around his waist, and followed the others. Soon the end of the rope dangled before me, and a shout warned me to tie a loop about myself so that I could be hauled up. My height was not sufficient to reach all the ledges unaided. I rested again at a much higher stage, and the rope was carried upwards. At last I was hauled to the topmost ledge where the others of the party awaited me. Being kind and considerate men, they had waited for me so that we could all enter the Cave together, and I confess that my heart warmed at their thoughtfulness. “Now we have hauled up the Mascot we can continue!” growled one. “Yes,” I replied, “but the smallest one had to move first or you would not be here!” They laughed, and turned to the well-concealed crevice. I looked in considerable astonishment. At first I could not see the entrance, all I saw was a dark shadow looking much like a dried-up watercourse, or the stain of minute lichen. Then, as we crossed the ledge, I saw that there was indeed a crack in the rock face. A big lama grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me into the rock fissure saying, good-naturedly, “You go first, and then you can chase out any rock devils and so protect us!” So I, the smallest and least important of the party, was the first to enter the Cave of the Ancients. I edged inside, and crept round the rock corners. Behind me I heard the shuffle and scrape as the bulkier men felt their way in. Suddenly the light burst upon me, for the moment almost paralyzing me with fright. I stood motionless by the rocky wall, gazing at the fantastic scene within. The Cave appeared to be about twice as large as the interior of the Great Cathedral of Lhasa. Unlike that Cathedral, which always was enshrouded in the dusk which butter lamps tried vainly to dispel, here was brightness more intense than that of the full moon on a cloudless night. No, it was much brighter than that; the quality of the light must have given me the impression of moonlight. I gazed upwards at the globes which provided the illumination. The 88 lamas crowded in beside me, and, like me, they gazed at the source of light first. My Guide said, “The old records indicate that the illumination here was originally much brighter, these lamps are burning low with the passage of hundreds of centuries.” For long moments we stood still, silent, as though afraid of waking those who slept throughout the endless years. Then, moved by a common impulse, walked across the solid stone floor to the first machine standing dormant before us. We crowded around it, half afraid to touch it yet very curious as to what it could be. It was dulled with age, yet it appeared ready for instant use—if one knew what it was for and how to operate it. Other devices engaged our attention, also without result. These machines were far far too advanced for us, I wandered off to where a small square platform of about three feet wide, with guard rails, rested on the ground. What appeared to be a long, folded metal tube extended from a nearby machine, and the platform was attached to the other end of the tube. Idly I stepped on to the railed square, wondering what it could be. The next instant I almost died of shock; the platform gave a little tremor and rose high into the air. I was so frightened that I clung in desperation to the rails. Below me the six lamas gazed upwards in consternation. The tube had unfolded and was swinging the platform straight to one of the spheres of light. In desperation I looked over the side. Already I was some thirty feet in the air, and rising. My fear was that the source of light would burn me to a crisp, like a moth in the flame of a butter lamp. There was a “click” and the platform stopped. Inches from my face the light glowed. Timidly I stretched out my hand — and the whole sphere was as cold as ice. By now I had regained my composure somewhat, and I gazed about me. Then a chilling thought struck me; how was I going to get down? I jumped from side to side, trying to work out a way of escape, but there appeared to be none. I tried to reach the long tube, hoping to climb down, 89 but it was too far away. Just when I was becoming desperate, there was another tremor, and the platform started to descend. Hardly waiting for it to touch ground I leaped out! I was taking no risks that the thing would go up again. Against a far wall crouched a great statue, one that sent a shiver up my spine. It was of a crouching cat body, but with the head and shoulders of a woman. The eyes appeared to be alive; the face had a half-mocking, half-quizzical expression which rather frightened me. One of the lamas was on his knees on the floor, gazing intently at some strange marks. “Look!” he called, “this picture-writing shows men and cats talking, it shows what is obviously the soul leaving a body and wandering in the under-world.” He was consumed with scientific zeal, poring over the pictures on the floor—“hieroglyphs” he called them—and expecting everyone else to be similarly enthused. This Lama was a highly trained man, one who learned ancient languages without any difficulties at all. The others were poking around the strange machines, trying to decide what they were for. A sudden shout made us wheel round in some alarm. The tall thin Lama was at the far wall and he seemed to have his face stuck in a dull metal box. He stood there with his head bent and the whole of his face concealed. Two men rushed to him and dragged him away from the danger. He uttered a roar of wrath and dashed back! “Strange!” I thought, “even the sedate, learned lamas are going crazy in this place!” Then the tall, thin one moved aside and another took his place. So far as I could gather, they were seeing moving machines in that box. At last my Guide took pity on me and lifted me up to what apparently were “eye pieces”. As I was lifted up and put my hands on a handle as instructed, I saw inside the box, men, and the machines which were in this Hall. The men were operating the machines. I saw that the platform upon which I had ascended to the light-sphere could be controlled and was a type of moveable “ladder” or rather a device which would dispense with ladders. Most of the machines 90 here, I observed, were actual working models such as, in later years, I was to see in Science Museums throughout the world. We moved to the panel which the Lama Mingyar Dondup had told me about previously, and at our approach it opened with a grating creak, so loud in the silence of the place that I think we all jumped with alarm. Inside was the darkness, profound, almost as if we had clouds of blackness swirling about us. Our feet were guided by shallow channels in the floor. We shuffled along, and when the channels ended we sat. As we did so, there came a series of clicks, like metal scraping against metal, and almost imperceptibly light stole across the darkness and pushed it aside. We looked about us and saw more machines, strange machines. There were statues here, and pictures carved in metal. Before we had time to more than glance, the light drew in upon itself and formed a glowing globe in the centre of the Hall. Colours flickered aimlessly, and bands of light without apparent meaning swirled round the globe. Pictures formed, at first blurred and indistinct, then growing vivid and real and with three-dimensional effect. We watched intently . This was the world of Long Long Ago. When the world was very young. Mountains stood where now there are seas, and the pleasant seaside resorts are now mountain tops. The weather was warmer and strange creatures roamed afield. This was a world of scientific progress. Strange machines rolled along, flew inches from the surface of the Earth, or flew miles up in the air. Great temples reared their pinnacles skywards, as if in challenge to the clouds. Animals and Man talked telepathically together. But all was not bliss; politicians fought against politicians. The world was a divided camp in which each side coveted the lands of the other. Suspicion and fear were the clouds under which the ordinary man lived. Priests of both sides proclaimed that they alone were the favoured of the gods. In the pictures before us we saw ranting priests—as now— 91 purveying their own brand of salvation. At a price! Priests of each sect taught that it was a “holy duty” to kill the enemy. Almost in the same breath they preached that Mankind throughout the world were brothers. The illogicality of brother killing brother did not occur to them. We saw great wars fought, with most of the casualties being civilians. The armed forces, safe behind their armour, were mostly safe. The aged, the women and children, those who did not fight, were the ones to suffer. We saw glimpses of scientists working in laboratories, working to produce even deadlier weapons, working to produce bigger and better bugs to drop on the enemy. One sequence of pictures showed a group of thoughtful men planning what they termed a “Time Capsule” (what we called “The Cave of the Ancients”), wherein they could store for later generations working models of their machines and a complete, pictorial record of their culture and lack of it. Immense machines excavated the living rock. Hordes of men installed the models and the machines. We saw the cold-light spheres hoisted in place, inert radio-active substances giving off light for millions of years. Inert in that it could not harm humans, active in that the light would continue almost until the end of Time itself. We found that we could understand the language, then the explanation was shown, that we were obtaining the “speech” telepathically. Chambers such as this, or “Time Capsules”, were concealed beneath the sands of Egypt, beneath a pyramid in South America, and at a certain spot in Siberia. Each place was marked by the symbol of the times; the Sphinx. We saw the great statues of the Sphinx, which did not originate in Egypt, and we received an explanation of its form. Man and animals talked and worked together in those far-off days. The cat was the most perfect animal for power and intelligence. Man himself is an animal, so the Ancients made a figure of a large cat body to indicate power and endurance, and upon the body they put the breasts and head of a woman. The head was to 92 indicate human intelligence and reason, while the breasts indicated that Man and Animal could draw spiritual and mental nourishment each from the other. That Symbol was then as common as is Statues of Buddha, or the Star of David, or the Crucifix at the present day. We saw oceans with great floating cities which moved from land to land. In the sky floated equally large craft which moved without sound. Which could hover, and almost instantly flash into stupendous speed. On the surface vehicles moved some inches above the ground itself, supported in the air by some method which we could not determine. Bridges stretched across the cities carrying on slender cables what appeared to be roadways. As we watched we saw a vivid flash in the sky, and one of the largest bridges collapsed into a tangle of girders and cables. Another flash, and most of the city itself vanished into incandescent gas. Above the ruins towered a strangely evil-looking red cloud, roughly in the shape of a mushroom miles high. Our pictures faded, and we saw again the group of men who had planned the "Time Capsules". They had decided that now was the time to seal them. We saw the ceremonies, we saw the "stored memories" being fitted into the machine. We heard the speech of farewell which told us—“The People of the Future, if there be any!”—that Mankind was about to destroy itself, or such seemed probable, “and within these vaults are stored such records of our achievements and follies as may benefit those of a future race who have the intelligence to discover it, and having discovered it, be able to understand it.” The telepathic voice faded out the picture screen turned black. We sat in silence, stupefied by what we had seen. Later, as we sat, the light grew again and we saw that it was actually coming from the walls of that room. We rose and looked about us. This Hall was also littered with machines and there were many models of cities and bridges, all formed of some kind of stone or of some type 93 of metal the nature of which we were unable to determine. Certain of the exhibits were protected by some quite transparent material which baffled us: It was not glass; we just did not know what the stuff was, all we knew was that it effectively prevented us from touching some of the models. Suddenly we all jumped; a baleful red eye was watching us, winking at us. I was prepared to run for it when my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup strode over to the machine with the red eye. He looked down at it and touched the handles. The red eye vanished. Instead on a small screen we saw a picture of another room leading from the Main Hall. Into our brains came a message, “As you leave, go to the room (???) where you will find materials with which to seal any opening through which you entered. If you have not reached the stage of evolution where you can work our machines, seal this place and leave it intact for those who will come later.” Silently we filed out into the third room, the door of which opened at our approach. It contained many carefully sealed canisters and a “picture-thought” machine which described for us how we might open the canisters and seal the Cave entrance. We sat upon the floor and discussed that which we had seen and experienced. “Wonderful! Wonderful!” said a lama. “Don't see anything wonderful in it,” said I, brashly. “We could have seen all that by looking at the Akashic Record. Why should we not look at those time-stream pictures and see what happened after this place was sealed up?” The others turned enquiringly to the senior of the party, the Lama Mingyar Dondup. He nodded slightly and remarked, “Sometimes our Lobsang shows glimmerings of intelligence! Let us compose ourselves and see what happened, for I am as curious as you.” We sat in a rough circle, each facing in, and with our fingers interlocked in the appropriate pattern. My Guide started the necessary breathing rhythm and we all followed his lead. Slowly we lost our Earth identities and became as one floating in the Sea of Time. All that has ever happened can 94 be seen by those who have the ability to consciously go into the astral and return—conscious—with the knowledge gained. Any scene in history, from an age no matter how remote, can be seen as if one were actually there. I remembered the first time I had experienced the “Akashic Record.” My Guide had been telling me about such things, and I had replied, “Yes, but what is it? How does it work? How can one get in touch with things that have passed, that are finished and gone?” “Lobsang!” he had replied, “you will agree that you have a memory. You can remember what happened yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. With a little training you can remember everything that has happened in your life, you can, with training remember even the process of being born. You can have what we term ‘total recall’ and that will take your memory back to before you were born. The Akashic Record is merely the ‘memory’ of the whole world. Everything that has ever happened on this Earth can be ‘recalled’ in just the same way as you can remember past events in your life. There is no magic involved, but we will deal with that and hypnotism—a closely related subject— at a later date.” With our training it was easy indeed to select the point at which the Machine had faded out its pictures. We saw the procession of men and women, notables of that time no doubt, file out of the Cave. Machines with vast arms slid what appeared to be half a mountain over the entrance. The cracks and crevices where surfaces met were carefully sealed, and the group of people and the workmen went away. Machines rolled into the distance and for a time, some months, the scene was quiet. We saw a high priest standing on the steps of an immense Pyramid, exhorting his listeners to war. The pictures impressed upon the Scrolls of Time rolled on, changed, and we saw the opposing camp. Saw the leaders ranting and raving. Time moved on. We saw streaks of white vapor in the blue of the skies, and then those skies turned red. The whole world trembled and 95 shook. We, watching, experienced vertigo. The darkness of the night fell over the world. Black clouds, shot with vivid flames, rolled around the whole globe. Cities flamed briefly and were gone. Across the land surged the raging seas. Sweeping all before it, a giant wave, taller than the tallest building had been, roared across the land, its crest bearing aloft the flotsam of a dying civilization,. The Earth shook and thundered in agony, great chasms appeared and closed again like the gaping maws of a giant. The mountains waved like willow twigs in a storm, waved, and sank beneath the seas. Land masses rose from the waters and became mountains. The whole surface of the world was in a state of change, of learn something. Then, our mission accomplished, we continuous motion. A few scattered survivors, out of miIlions, fled shrieking to the newly risen mountains. Others, afloat in ships that somehow survived the upheaval, reached the high ground and fled into any hiding place they could find. The Earth itself stood still, stopped its direction of rotation, and then turned in the opposite direction. Forests flashed from trees to scattered ash in the twinkling of an eye. The surface of the Earth was desolate, ruined, charred to a black crisp. Deep in holes, or in the lava-tunnels of extinct volcanoes, a scattered handful of Earth's population, driven insane by the catastrophe, cowered and gibbered in their terror. From the black skies fell a whitish substance, sweet to the taste, sustaining of life. In the course of centuries the Earth changed again; the seas were now land, and the lands that had been were now seas. A low-lying plain had its rocky walls cracked and sundered, and the waters rushed in to form the Sea now known as the Mediterranean. Another sea nearby sank through a gap in the sea bed, and as the waters left and the bed dried, the Sahara Desert was formed. Over the face of the Earth wandered wild tribes who, by the light of their camp fires, told of the old legends, told of the Flood of Lemuria, and Atlantis. They told, too, of the day the Sun Stood Still. 96 The Cave of the Ancients lay buried in the silt of a halfdrowned world. Safe from intruders, it rested far beneath the surface of the land. In course of time, fast-running streams would wash away the silt, the debris, and allow the rocks to stand forth in the sunlight once more. At last, heated by the sun and cooled by a sudden icy shower, the rock face would split with thunderous noise and we would be able to enter. We shook ourselves, stretched our cramped limbs, and rose wearily to our feet. The experience had been a shattering one. Now we had to eat, to sleep, and on the morrow we would look about us again so that we might perhaps would wall up the entrance as directed. The Cave would sleep again in peace until men of goodwill and high intelligence would come again. I wandered to the Cave mouth and looked down upon the desolation, upon the riven rocks, and I wondered what a man of the Old Times would think if he could rise from his grave to stand beside me, here. As I turned in to the interior I marveled at the contrast; a lama was lighting a fire with flint and tinder, igniting some dried yak dung which we had brought for that purpose. Around us were the machines and artifacts of a bygone age. We—modern men—were heating water over a dung fire, surrounded by such marvelous machines that they were beyond our comprehension. I sighed, and turned my thoughts to that of mixing tea and tsampa......